Motor population coding during failed retention tasks

Single-unit data collected with NeuroNexus A4x8-5mm-100-200-177-A32 probes in the mouse anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) was openly shared by the Karel Svoboda lab. The present study in eNeuro from Chae et al. at Catholic Kwandong University in South Korea pooled data from two datasets and across delayed-response task trials to create a model of ALM population activity. Their results demonstrate that selectivity is greatest for neurons most strongly correlated with the population activity, but that when selective neurons’ activity is decorelated from the population, even if some neurons encode correctly, memory fails on that trial.